CYPRUS & MALTA: Having failed to reunite itself, Cyprus will enter the EU on Saturday with mixed feelings. Michael Jansen looks at divided Cyprus and placid Malta
Membership in the EU of Cyprus and Malta, the EU's two island entrants, means very different things to both the rest of the EU and the populations of the two states themselves.
For the EU and the Cypriots, a people divided by ethnicity and religion whose territory is partly occupied by Turkey, Saturday's enlargement is clouded by the Greek Cypriot rejection of the UN plan for the reunification of the divided island.
Dr Takis Hajidemetriou, who resigned last week as the Cypriot republic's harmonisation commissioner in protest against his government's opposition to the plan, told The Irish Times that EU officials and members were particularly angry because "the solution to the Cyprus problem was meant to be the greatest event of the enlargement, the entry of Cyprus as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic country," that is an Orthodox-Muslim, Hellenic-Turkic country.
As far as the Greek Cypriots are concerned, he said, "I'm afraid the [strongly negative] reaction of the EU to the result of [last Saturday's] referendum on the plan lessened the enthusiasm of the people in joining the Union. Turkish Cypriots are naturally very disappointed" because they have been left out of the EU.
Spirits may be temporarily lifted on the weekend by the concerts, folk-dancing, and fireworks which will take place in Nicosia (Europe's and the world's last divided capital) and in cities and villages throughout the repu- blic. But most Cypriots will not regain their optimism and keenness for Europe until reunification negotiations are resumed.
Cyprus set its course on the road to join Europe in 1970. The republic's main motivation was and remains security. The Greek Cypriots, 82 per cent of the island's population, see themselves as a small people living on an isolated island only 40 miles from Turkey, a major eastern Mediterranean military power.
Greek Cypriots believe that they would be safe from Turkish intervention only if they gain entry to the European bloc which Ankara also seeks to join. To achieve this ambition, the Greek Cypriots have worked hard to reach a negotiated settlement with the Turkish Cypriots and to meet the EU's requirements. In the first endeavour they have failed but in the second they have succeeded.
Cypriots from both communities see themselves as Europeans in the cultural sphere and hope to benefit economically from the EU's internal common market and an increased flow of European tourists to the whole of the island. EU funding for the development of the Turkish Cypriot north is expected to raise the standard of living there, per capita income being about one-third of the level in the Greek Cypriot south.
The Maltese, a Catholic community living without threat on three small islands closer to Europe, adopted a much more relaxed attitude towards joining the EU than the Cypriots. Malta was the EU's only off-and-on candidate. Under Labour Party rule, Malta even rejected accession.
President Eddie Fenech Adami, the former Nationalist Party prime minister who revived Malta's bid for membership, said, "Joining is a sort of homecoming. It has forced us to make much-needed changes" in economic and social policy.
Malta delayed meeting EU harmonisation requirements until entry was certain and must now hurry to carry out its obligations. Nevertheless, the Union, eager to expand its Mediterranean dimension, accommodated politically placid Malta. Malta won 77 exemptions to EU accession rules, including limiting the number of EU member workers entering the job market, barring all non-Maltese from acquiring land, and maintaining Malta's ban on abortion.
Malta, a tiny archipelago, will become the EU's smallest member-state, winning that distinction from Luxembourg.